Posted
by
CmdrTacoon Tuesday April 14, 2009 @05:59PM
from the upgrade-or-die dept.

CWmike writes "Mozilla is pondering dropping support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP without Service Pack 3 when it ships the follow-up to Firefox 3.5 in 2010, show discussions on the mozilla.dev.planning forum by developers and Mozilla executives, including the company's chief engineer and its director of Firefox. 'Raise the minimum requirements on Gecko 1.9.2 (and any versions of Firefox built on 1.9.2) for Windows builds to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher,' said Michael Conner, one of the company's software engineers, to start the discussion. Mozilla is currently working on Gecko 1.9.1, the engine that powers Firefox 3.5, the still-in-development browser the company hopes to release at some point in the second quarter. Gecko 1.9.2, and the successor to Firefox 3.5 built on it — dubbed 'Firefox.next' and code named 'Namoroka' — are slated to wrap up in 'early-to-mid 2010,' according to Mozilla."

Ever try running Firefox 3 on a version of Linux from 2003 or 2004? Get ready to build Gnome from source, because the versions (of Gnome) that are compatible with distro's of that age don't support Firefox versions higher than 2.

It's not about needing, it's about testing. By dropping support for XP-SP0, you declare that you've never tested your software on XP-SP0. It might work, or it might not. Some code might have recently been written which breaks on SP0 because of a bug that has been fixed since SP3. Or it might not.

Point is, dropping support for older Windows versions decreases the amount of testing needed. That is the biggest value, not about utilizing newer APIs.

No. Fundamentally, what is a web browser? It's a program that sends out tcp/ip packets, waits for the response, and displays stuff on screen.
While there have been many new features added to windows over the years, there isn't anything fundamental that has changed that would impede a web browser from running on an older version of the win32 api.

Basically true, but the devil is in the details. Latest Firefox version does stuff such as display downloaded fonts on web pages without installing said fonts in th

"No. Fundamentally, what is a web browser? It's a program that sends out tcp/ip packets, waits for the response, and displays stuff on screen."

You'd be surprised how many things can go wrong, even if it's just "a program that sends out tcp/ip packets, waits for the response, and displays stuff on screen".- What if you rely on the fact that you can draw a line in your window, from a positive coordinate to a negative coordinate? And what if older versions of Windows had a bug that causes the entire screen to

"It also decreases the compatibility with the systems your userbase use. Smart move!"

If dropping support for 0.5% of by user base decreases 30% of my testing effort, which I then can allocate into fixing bugs and making things better for the other 99.5% of the user base, then yes it actually is a smart move.

"I really wonder how many of the legal and illegal XP users combined actually have SP3. Yes the illegal XP users are a legitimate userbase, because they are a big part of the reason that the OS got adopt

Sure, you're right, because making software that is visually appealing and leverages the underlying display technology for something as visually oriented and ubiquitous as web browsing on the most used lineage of OS is completely unimportant. Instead, they should rewrite the windows XUL backend in Tcl/Tk for kicks.

Just a quick note for clarification, only gecko 1.9.2 and firefox built on that version of gecko (firefox 3.6?) will lack support for 2000 and xp. The development (3.5) and current version (3) will likely still be supported and still receive updates.

I actually agree with this move - it adds time/bloat/etc for each platform you want to support. By choosing to drop some of the less used platforms, assuming by then xp won't be used much, you can really save on development time/etc.

There, fixed that for ya. Really, it's disingenuous to whine about there being a user impact when dropping support for these platforms without also acknolwedging the ongoing support cost to Mozilla's finite development and QA resources.

WinOld users will still be free to use Firefox 3.5, and will get updates for a good while. And since the source code is available, users of Win 2000 through XP SP 2 can band together to produce their own updates if so desired.

However, my bet is on no one caring enough to waste the time or energy.

Oh, yeah. XP SP2 was brought up just because MS is going to drop support for it in a year. I don't think it's realistic to drop app support for it, and neither do a lot of other people.

> because XP is nearly the same core operating system.

It's the differences that make testing a huge hassle... And yes, there are XP APIs that Firefox uses that are not present on 2k, and yes we've had 2k-only bug reports that took up a lot of QA and developer time to deal with. So it's not silly at all to drop 2k support: it frees up people to work on other things.

Why does dropping support for a 10 year old OS automatically mean a bad thing? Perhaps the peeps involved in Mozilla development realized that fewer OS's to support means more resources can be dedicated to moving forward with the app.

Honestly the only real flaw in my theory is that it could applied to Microsoft, too.

Getting people used to auto updates, even in linux, is about this idea of getting people used to monthly charges over software.

Though I don't disagree that Microsoft would love to get into the OS rental market, I don't think this statement has much to go on. The automatic update is about preventing another Blaster from embarrasing them, at least as near as I can tell.

An absolutely secure OS would also eliminate the need for virus scanners, and the yearly/monthly subscription fees associated with getting updated virus signature files.

I don't think MS has a pay-for anti-virus product. Certainly not one that means much to them. Having a reputation as the least secure OS certainly isn't helping their marketing. $10 says they'd rather have perfect security than revenue from selling a virus scanner.

In my experience with 2K and XP, the service pack problems have always been when applying the SP to an existing install. Slipstream SP4 -> 2K install CD, SP3 -> XP install CD for a fresh install (when you are ready to do it) and you are good to go.

Both Win2k and XP are in "extended support" mode, according to MS. I'm not quite sure how MS can justify this for an OS that is still being sold by MS.

The Mozilla foundation won't be the first to make this decision -- for example, recent iTunes releses haven't run in Win2k and Windows Defender won't install on Win2k (unless you edit the MSI file, after which it will install and run fine under Win2k).

As long as they don't come out with detectives and try to take away my two W2K licenses, I could give a rip wether Microsoft 'supports' my W2K boxes. I refuse to upgrade past W2k. All the briteboys who aren't even old enough to have used W2K can say what they want. Microsoft hasn't done anything since the W2K release compelling enough for anybody with a clue to upgrade past it. That's the whole POINT in keeping Mozilla current on W2K.

It used to be that one of the big selling points of Mozilla/Firefox was that it could run on almost any OS! Mac, Windows (95 and NT 3.51 and up), Linux, BeOS, OS/2, Solaris, and more!

To me this meant I could go to just about any computer, use Firefox, and have every web page render the same regardless of the OS. And I didn't have to worry about purchasing or learning a new OS just to browse a web site.

What happened to all of that?

I would almost think that with the economy as it is, Mozilla would want to keep Firefox as popular as possible by keeping it running on all these older computers out there that will NOT be replaced any time in the near future.

And personally, I'm still disappointed there is no Windows 9x version any more. Thank goodness for SeaMonkey 1.1.x and Opera!

I also think that you and those like you represent a loud minority of the user base who believe that somehow Mozilla owes it to you to maintain support for $archaic_OS_of_choice, regardless of market realities.

If you'd ever been involved in Enterprise software development, you'd realize that to stay competitive, Firefox must move forward. They must do so with this thing called "limited resources". That means that they can't support everything ev

FF 3 does not run on those, and also requires Mac OS 10.4. And I believe it doesn't run with gtk more than a few years old (Linux and Solaris). I am not sure about its current status on BeOS/Haiku and OS/2

I was using Windows 2000 last month at work. It is still currently being used by everyone that doesn't see the need to disrupt workflow by upgrading all the old PCs to XP. Yes, all current computers that you could buy in a store "today" can run XP SP3 (and maybe even Vista), but not everyone is buying a new computer every couple of years. Especially not corporations who have to live with a budget and who are smart enough to see that the recession means they have to tighten the belt and make do with capital equipment they already have.

It doesn't matter how much Microsoft whines that we're not upgrading, or how badly developers wish they could dump support for older OSes, or how desparately new hires out of college want to see cutting edge tech waiting for them, older hardware and software will be around for a long time.

Isn't this the merit of OSS, in that someone who needs Firefox to run on older Windows clients can maintain a branch that implements 1.9.1? I'd need to know "why" Gecko 1.9.2 doesn't run on older versions of Windows to make a value judgement as to weather or not this is a bad idea.

Particularly when it comes to security, too much backward compatibility can be a really bad idea, and it is partially MS-fault that everyone expects all general-purpose consumer Windows software to run on older depreciated platforms adding code complexity, inefficiency and a greater risk for security issues.

Apple users have dealt with (for a long time) that certain updated software might require a newer OS release than they have and the vendor left it up to them to make the call if upgrading the OS+software or sticking with what they have is the right call.

Isn't this the merit of OSS, in that someone who needs Firefox to run on older Windows clients can maintain a branch that implements 1.9.1? I'd need to know "why" Gecko 1.9.2 doesn't run on older versions of Windows to make a value judgment as to weather or not this is a bad idea.

Back when Mozilla dropped MacOS 9 after Mozilla 1.2.1, some other folks rolled their own 1.3.x versions. And there is even a version of Firefox 3 for OS/2! I was even kind of hoping someone would have hacked together a version o

XP x64 is based on the Server 2003 code base, not the XP x86 code base. Despite it's age, SP2 is the most recent service pack for the Server 2003 line. As long as it supports Server 2003 SP2, it will support XP x64.

It's easy enough to say, unfortunately having seen dev. trees come and go. When someone starts saying 'go by the wayside', 'implying code base on so and so' or anything along those lines, we'll also see the same in terms of any upstream OS's based off of it.

I know where you're coming from. I simply don't trust devs not to fudge things up along the way and 'forget'.

So Moz is only going to support the current shipping service pack for XP and Vista. Why? Is Firefox doing anything (better question SHOULD it be) low level enough for the current version to matter?

The situation with FF on Linux it is bad enough, in that they don't do security fixes for older versions, and new versions generally won't run on old Linux distributions but we understand that Moz Corp doesn't really give a crap about Linux, they make their coin on Windows. But now they are slashing Windows support. Only supporting XP SP3 isn't terrible, but if it is a prelude to dropping XP when 7 ships it will be a terrible thing.

"So Moz is only going to support the current shipping service pack for XP and Vista. Why? Is Firefox doing anything (better question SHOULD it be) low level enough for the current version to matter?"

Yes, bug fixes in the operating system. If you write code then you'd have to test your code on all supported versions of Windows to make sure that there's no weird Windows bug which breaks your code. The more OS versions you support, the more testing you have to do. All the effort spent on testing $ANCIENT_VERSI

Let's get this straight: "Raise the minimum requirements to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher," with no benefit, and no rationale other than for breaking compatibility for its own sake? If that's the case, I venture to say that Mozilla has seriously lost its way.

So, Microsoft ditched support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP pre-SP2? So what; the APIs are just the same now as they always have been. If anything, Mozilla should focus more attention to catering to users of OS versions that Microsoft left behind, where they have less competition...and chances are, the users of Windows 2000 are still using the OS that they are because they're frustrated with Microsoft's "support" policies and the further regressions (performance and usability issues, product activation) posed by newer versions of its products.

I'm seriously still bitter about them breaking compatibility with Windows 95 and NT4 a few versions back: One consequence was that the current version of Firefox was no longer capable of running off a version of Windows not unremovably inundated with Internet Explorer and its ilk. Short of a miracle of penetration from the Linux camp, how are we going to wean people off of a steady consumption of upgraded Microsoft products when we get attitudes and potential decisions like this?

No benefit? Do you have any idea how much effort is wasted testing these platforms? How many opportunity costs there are to supporting old stuff?

You can't say you "support" a platform these days unless your tests pass on it. That means you need it installed somewhere running test software, and someone familiar with the platform needs to be around to help you when things break, which they do. Supporting it also means crippling any software that wants to use APIs that later versions of the platform supports. You either need two versions of the code (one with the feature you want, one without, a serious nightmare) or you have to tell the users of Windows XP from *years* ago "so sorry, we can't use that important performance optimization. Some idiot somewhere is still running Win2k".

Platform support is a huge cost. Dropping it is an easy savings. Any organization that acts without regard to cost has never even seen the way, never mind "lost" it.

You'll still be able to download older versions of Firefox; they might even continue to provide security updates for them.

I have a WinXP SP2 system at home, which for various reasons not of interest here, I am unable to upgrade to SP3. Chrome works just fine though, so maybe I'll just make that my full time browser on that machine.

Also running WinXP SP2 at work, as the admins haven't seen fit to make SP3 part of the supported environment. Looks like my Firefox install would have to plateau here as well.

This begs the question--are they TRYING to get me to quit using FF? XP SP2 isn't THAT old of an OS. I can't really underst

Remember, they're talking about a release of an app in the year 2010, and whether they'll support it on Windows 2000. Windows XP and Windows Vista have both been out for years already, and Windows 7 should be current by the time this move gets made.

So that's a 10-year-old operating system, four major releases behind, for which Microsoft won't even be providing security updates after July 2010 (unless they've changed their minds).

XP is another story, mainly due to the fact that Vista not only took forever, but has failed to catch on with the market. Fortunately they're only talking about dropping support for systems running on older XP service packs, not for a fully-updated system.

2000 and XP were released a year apart with next to 100% API compatibility with one another. I fail to see how an app would ever choose to disable the ability to run on 2k.

If you want this in today's standards, imagine a company 5 years from now deciding to develop an application for Windows 7 and not allow it to be run on Windows Vista. Simply idiotic since API wise, they're basically the same.

Finally, if 2000 was anything like Win9x generation or maybe NT4 which lacks many common hardware profiles, there'

> 2000 and XP were released a year apart with next to 100% API compatibility with one> another.

Compat in the sense that 2k APIs work in XP, yes. The other direction, no. For example, to take advantage of the theming stuff in XP requires writing code that will work on XP but not on Win2k, because XP added some APIs that don't exist on Win2k.

the ones who would suffer most from such a move are those least able to afford new hardware -- kid you not -- i was at a school in march 2009 -- with old donated machines that were still running windows 98 (yes 98!!) and the 'new' machine was running windows 2000. i was trying to login to get my.mac webmail - which requires at least safari 3, mozilla 2, or ie7 - fat chance to get my webmail if i'm running on win2k - ugh. but i was able to DL & install (using win98) a copy of mozilla2 for win98 and get access to my webmail -- mozilla was the only link that made it possible to keep that old machine useful for a modern webmail app. cutting support kills old machines and puts them into dumpsters and landfills.

Many of the decisions being done at Mozilla headquarters seem to be done pursuant to an agenda which is at significant cross-purposes to the desires of the actual user. I'm a Firefox pusher, and install it on every machine I touch; but my enthusiasm has been greatly cooling off over the last year or so.

OK... agreed, but that's not what I was talking about. By "web client" I meant client-side web software, usually called "browser" but not necessarily used for "browsing". Useful for e.g. downloading system software updates, taking a peek at some HTML-format documentation while you're standing at the server rack, etc. I generally have at least one machine in each rack with a GUI on it and part of that GUI is a HTML-renderer / HTTP-client, i.e. a web browser. It's not strictly absolutely necessary but often pretty handy.

Because I have yet to see a single legitimate reason NOT to upgrade XP from SP2 to SP3? The real question is why bother supporting users who are too lazy/stubborn to help themselves. Besides, it's not like it will suddenly break Firefox on sp2. It just means if you have an issue, they can say "upgrade to sp3 and see if you have the same problem". If your company's apps are such piles of shit that installing what is basically a collection of the hotfixes and security patches that were available before (a

SP3 can break things. Just one example: Latitude D600 hooked to external monitor that is rotated. Upgrade to SP3 and you can't rotate. I have about 3500 PCs out in the field in 800+ customer's offices that are not on 'managed networks'. I have 2 guys on the phones and 4 in the field to support all that. The possibility of breaking their core business software (that might not be current) is a very valid business reason not to jump off that cliff.

* You lose the address/command line bar (in the taskbar - you might not even know it's available in XP because it isn't on by default)* Some software won't install on SP3* It runs slightly slower* It breaks some drivers (I ran into the same problem someone else did on my Latitude - well, before the latitude finally croaked)

I have an XP SP2 machine on which SP3 consistently fails to install. Thats the best reason that I've found so far.

No, that really isn't a good reason. It means something is severely broken with either the install or the upgrade, and most likely the problem is with the current install. If it had been a problem with the upgrade, it would have been reproducible and fixed. If your system is so broken it is impossible to install an upgrade, the best solution is not to refrain from upgrading it, but rather to fin

The response was to the outright dismissal of Windows 2000. Having a web browser installed on a server for convenient download and installation of patches, drivers, etc. seems prudent enough. The dismissal of Windows 2000 entirely is the real jackassery.

Not everyone works in a large corporation...sometimes the 2 servers company A owns needs updates, and they're not going to have a whole WSUS deployment set up for those 2 servers and 10 workstations they own. I've worked in many environments where it's necessary to have a working web browser on a server.

Depends.
Using Firefox (or even IE) on a production server to hit support.microsoft.com, or an internal intranet site to get drivers and tools is fine.
Using google to search down stuff and go get it is a different thing altogether.
Logging in a root can be bad too.
it's all in how you use the tools. The most important security tool is the gray stuff behind your eyes...

No, it's very much not prudent on a production server. God help any company who hires you as a server admin.

I wonder. Does this apply to terminal servers too?

It would be rather absurd at a lot of companies to log into the vpn, log into the terminal server, and then search in vain for the web browser, only to be told after calling the help desk they can't browse the company intranet, or use any of the internal web applications like the CRM, web based project tracking, web based defect tracking, web based groupware, web based order entry and inventory tracking systems, etc, etc, etc because the new idiot server admin has a strict policy of not installing browsers on production servers.

Not every shop requires 24/7 99.99999% uptime. Not every shop can afford identical test hardware (or test hardware at all). My point is there are very different levels of "production" and pain tolerance (vs. spending more money and time).

Sometimes, in small companies, you just have to wing it and hope for the best (while having a fallback plan if everything goes to hell). A competent admin with an adequate sense of risk-vs-reward will do fine.

"I disagree. Some people prefer Windows 2000. And if you have a server, you might not want to upgrade. Also, some legacy applications may not run on newer systems."

That's a trivial number of users.They can, if they wish, look into the many possible workarounds. If I want to run a Win2K machine, that's my problem. If I need it for a special app, then it will run that and I'll surf with another machine.

Sure, some people do... but how many people are actually in this category? And is it worth the Mozilla Foundation's time and money to provide official support for it?

It's a legitimate question, and I'm betting the answer is: "Not enough to worry about." If you don't want to upgrade to XP or Vista because of the typical reasons I hear (don't like activation, too bloated, whatever), then switch to Linux or something. Or just keep using Firefox 3.1. Or fork Firefox to support Win2K, since you've got a vested interest in it. Just because it's your problem doesn't make it Mozilla's problem.

You realise right, Windows 2000 goes out of EXTENDED support next year (i.e. the same support status that XP has just entered into). This means no more updates (including security) for 2000 EVER from the middle of next year onwards.

Mozilla supporting it or in people fact using it from then on simply is not the best idea.

I mean, obviously if software vendors are going to discontinue support, that's a decent enough reason. But you understand it's kind of circular reasoning to argue that developers are right to drop support because people shouldn't be using it, because developers are dropping support?

In general, I don't buy new stuff just because it's newer than what I have. I'm not particularly outraged that Win2k support is being dropped, though. It is old, and if your old system is working fine with all the old software and drivers, then keep using it with Firefox v3 or v3.5. That's fine.

Still, if your computer is 6 years old and still working for you, I say stick with it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just try to keep it secure, since you won't be seeing new security patches.

Hey, I *AM* Still using Win2k, and you know what? It's *ON* A new computer. WITH Radeon HD3650, And a Logitech DFP, with a 500 gig SATA hard disk.
And y'know what? It runs circles around both Vista and XP, has had no crashes (although it HAS had irrepairable registry corruption! Appears to be either app or driver related but it's hard to track down once the OS is hosed.)
Best part is, with the except of games using Windows Live or Developer Studio 2k8 runtime libs I've had no problems installing/running games that are supposed to be XP only.
Anyone else out there with me?

At least they give some manner of justification - Microsoft themselves dropping support for Windows XP SP2 and anything older than that. fair 'nuff, I suppose - it's not like Firefox will magically stop working once they drop support and if somebody really, really wants to contribute patches to deal with older OS's, there's nothing really stopping them from doing so (or forking if the Mozilla peeps would actively block such patches from being included ).

Exactly my question. What advantage do they get by dropping the support? Can they add some new wicked feature they couldn't before? If so lets hear it and we can decide if its stupid or not. Otherwise this is meaningless.

They get extra resources, which are man hours, which equates into money, with which they can invest into other projects, or on the same project in different ways to improve it for the platforms they do want to support.

As long as Firefox waits until after that date to yank support from non-test code, I don't see a problem.

I disagree. It'd be a waste of resources for Mozilla to commit development and QA resources to supporting platforms that will be within scant months of their retirement date by the time "Firefox.next" is out.

The allegorical rat flees the ship while it is sinking, not afterwards.

1.) Service Packs are cumulative. You don't have to install all 3. You can just install SP3 and be done.
2.) SP3 can be slipstreamed directly into the install CD so that you don't have to install it after the fact. Google it.

Ah, yes. That wonderful blog post by Ben. This is a guy who was no longer active in Firefox development at the time and hadn't been for a while (close to a year). Before that be wasn't exactly working on memory issues either. So yes, he was being precisely a fanboy in that blog post: commenting about things he knew nothing about (all the bfcache stuff postdated his involvement, for example) while being completely blind to the actual issues involved.